Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [171]
I couldn’t repress a slight shiver at the memory of the white mask and the mocking voice behind it.
With a sigh, he let go of my hand. “Which means, I suppose, that I’d best go and see Glengarry, and find out just how many people he’s been regaling wi’ tales of my married life.” He rubbed a hand through his hair in exasperation. “And then I must go call on His Highness, and find out what in hell he means by this arrangement with the Comte St. Germain.”
“I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully, “though knowing Glengarry, he’s probably told half of Paris by now. I have some calls to make this afternoon, myself.”
“Oh, aye? And who are you going to call upon, Sassenach?” he asked, eyeing me narrowly. I took a deep breath, bracing myself at the thought of the ordeal that lay ahead.
“First, on Master Raymond,” I said. “And then, on Mary Hawkins.”
* * *
“Lavender, perhaps?” Raymond stood on tiptoe to take a jar from the shelf. “Not for application, but the aroma is soothing; it calms the nerves.”
“Well, that depends on whose nerves are involved,” I said, recalling Jamie’s reaction to the scent of lavender. It was the scent Jack Randall had favored, and Jamie found exposure to the herb’s perfume anything but soothing. “In this case, though, it might help. Do no harm, at any rate.”
“Do no harm,” he quoted thoughtfully. “A very sound principle.”
“That’s the first bit of the Hippocratic Oath, you know,” I said, watching him as he bent to rummage in his drawers and bins. “The oath a physician swears. ‘First, do no harm.’ ”
“Ah? And have you sworn this oath yourself, madonna?” The bright, amphibious eyes blinked at me over the edge of the high counter.
I felt myself flushing before that unblinking gaze.
“Er, well, no. Not actually. I’m not a real physician. Not yet.” I couldn’t have said what made me add that last sentence.
“No? Yet you are seeking to mend that which a ‘real’ physician would never try, knowing that a lost maidenhead is not restorable.” His irony was evident.
“Oh, isn’t it?” I answered dryly. Fergus had, with encouragement, told me quite a bit about the “ladies” at Madame Elise’s house. “What’s that bit with the shoat’s bladder full of chicken blood, hm? Or do you claim that things like that fall into an apothecary’s realm of competence, but not a physician’s?”
He had no eyebrows to speak of, but the heavy shelf of his forehead lifted slightly when he was amused.
“And who is harmed by that, madonna? Surely not the seller. Not the buyer, either—he is likely to get more enjoyment for his money than the purchaser of the genuine article. Not even the maidenhead itself is harmed! Surely a very moral and Hippocratic endeavor, which any physician might be pleased to assist?”
I laughed. “And I expect you know more than a few who do?” I said. “I’ll take the matter up with the next Medical Review Board I see. In the meantime, short of manufactured miracles, what can we do in the present case?”
“Mm.” He laid out a gauze square on the counter and poured a handful of finely shredded dried leaves into the center of it. A sharp, pleasant tang rose from the small heap of grayish-green vegetation.
“This is Saracen’s consound,” he said, skilfully folding the gauze into a tidy square with the ends tucked in. “Good for soothing irritated skin, minor lacerations, and sores of the privy parts. Useful, I think?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said, a little grimly. “As an infusion or a decoction?”
“Infusion. Warm, probably, under the circumstances.” He turned to another shelf and abstracted one of the large white jars of painted porcelain. This one said CHELIDONIUM on the side.
“For the inducement of sleep,” he explained. His lipless mouth stretched back at the corners. “I think perhaps you had better avoid the use of the opium-poppy derivatives; this particular patient appears to have an unpredictable response to them.”